FIVE SMOOTH STONES - The Five Ascension Gifts in the Heavenly Shepherds Bag

FIVE SMOOTH STONES — The Five Ascension Gifts in the Heavenly Shepherd’s Bag

1 Peter 5:1 “ The elders [noun] are among you I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed: 2 Shepherd [verb] the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, [noun] not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly; 3 nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. ” Peter is speaking to the leaders of the Church whom he alternately calls elders and overseers. These are nouns, the individuals he is addressing are elders and overseers. Then he tells them to shepherd the flock, a verb meaning to see that they are gathered and fed and cared for. He explains that they should do this by being examples to the people. This is one of the most important aspects of leadership, to show an example of mature Christian character to the people. Let’s assume that among the leaders of this Church there were representatives of all five ascension gift ministries. Then the prophet would show forth the example of a New Testament prophet to the people and shepherd them accordingly. The evangelist would show the example of a New Testament evangelist and shepherd them in the same way, the same would be true for the New Testament apostle, teacher and shepherd. Unless we can break ourselves away from the stronghold of limiting all eldership and oversight in the Church to the gift of a shepherd, and from releasing the gift of the shepherd outside of Church leadership, we will continue to frustrate the release of all the five ministries to some extent in the Church and the Kingdom. This cannot be over emphasized. The term pastor is so ingrained in the world wide Christian Church, and at the same time used as a Church office rather than a gift related to the kingdom, that it is difficult to both remove the effects of limiting the Church to this one gift, or dominating the leadership by it. And at the same time, releasing those with the gift of shepherd (pastor) to the body, regardless of leadership position, has been stymied by the incorrect usage and understanding of the word pastor in the Christian Church. Only when we can truly separate the positions of leadership from the gifts to the Church will we truly be able to have the gifts functioning within the leadership of the Church, as well as within the congregation and in the kingdom, including the secular workplace.

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